The Sims 2
Rating:  -
I love this game. The idea of the game is to create a person-a man or a woman-young or old- that may or may not have a family-you decide-you choose what they look like, how clean, how active, how nice, how serious, etc.. they are. You decide what they look like and what they will wear for everyday, pjs, swimwear and formal.
You decide if they'll have a family and how many will be in the family. You decide if they will be pretty or ugly, their likes, their dislikes and their aspirations.
You go to the main screen and then you decide where they will live. What neighborhood? How big of a lot to build the house on? They all start off with the same amount of money and you have to build your house within that budget (20,000 sim bucks) or you can buy a premade house. OR you can type in a cheat to give your sims free money.
You move your simmies in and then decorate your house with furniture you have to buy from the buy menu screen. You choose sofas, rugs, decorations, toilets, kitchen cabinets, etc...You choose how many bathrooms, bedrooms and you choose the colors of the wallpaper and floors and the windows and doors and where these items will go in/on the home.
The sims have needs. They have to have food (fridge/stove, or order delivery otherwise they'll die a horrible slow death with pain and suffering-unable to sleep and function) they need to use the bathroom (toilet or they will pee on the floor and lose their dignity) they need a shower or they will have green smoke coming off them and when their needs aren't being met-they will look up at you from their Sim world and wave their arms trying to get your attention and with thier Sims dialect- which is not english and is incomprehensible-they will scream out to you (I am roughly translating what I think they're saying ) "Help me-I need a shower! I stink!!! Look at the green smoke coming off of me! Please! People person who controls my life-My GOD-PLEASE-give me a shower or a sink to bathe myself in!!!" and you may show mercy and give them something to bathe in or you can be a cruel god and let them suffer. Muahahahahaha!!!!!!!
You make them find a job on their computer or from the newspaper that's delivered in front of their house everyday. They have to pay bills that are delivered by a mailman every 3 days in their mailbox. You can have them open their own business from home (expansion pack Open for Business) or lease land and open a store. You decide what to sell and how much to sell it for.
You make them go to work-or school or you can make them play hookey and make them lose their jobs and become fat lazy bums. OH yes, and they do become fat if they don't exercise. You have to make them swim, workout, exercise on a machine or do some other activity-otherwise they get FAT. You decide what they eat and what they eat depends on how well you've taught your Simmies how to cook.
You can make them call other sims or they can greet them into their homes as visitors. But you cannot go off your lot to go visit them. Although you can take your own car or call a cab and go downtown(with the right expansion pack Nightlife) or to a store in the neighborhood and you can go shopping or eat dinner out or go for a night on the town with other simmie friends.
You meet a mate-male or female-gay or straight- you can live together, be engaged or get married. You can have kids or you can adopt-you can even buy or adopt a pet (expansion pack Pets). You then teach your kids/pets to be good or bad-to love them or neglect them (You can't kill the kids-yes, I've tried-you'll understand when you've had one that's turned into a toddler-grrrrr...the social worker takes them away before they are too badly damaged but you can make the little suckers suffer or you can show the little angels mercy and give them a good, loving home. (I don't know about killing the pets, I've never tried killing an animal.I don't care how much they pee on the floor or rip up the furniture-I cannot try to kill a dog or a cat even on my most evil days. And YES You WILL have EVIL days, my friends and your simmies will suffer for it although you don't have to save the game when you're finished and the next time you load it'll be like nothing ever happened. :)
When the brats grow up and go to high school you can send them off to college (Expansion pack University City) after a week, I think. And you can follow the kid into college you decide their major and their friends and love interests and make them do well in school or fail and then when they graduate they become adults and they move back into the regular neighborhood again.
Oh, and the simmies age and they live as a baby, toddler, child, teenager, young adult, adult, elder and then they crook. During their lives they can become zombies, vampires, aliens, plant people and there may be more. ONe of my simmies were abducted by aliens and one was biten by a vampire. It depends on what expansion pack you have. But this Sims 2 game without the expansion pack-you can be abducted by aliens and give birth to aliens. And when you die-you even get a tombstone or an urn. They can come back as ghosts but you can't control them.
THat sums up the game. It's a lot of fun. I like following the family generations. You can have a grandchild or a great grandchild. There are cheats to make them stop aging if you want, also.
Don't waste your money on the console version-the PC version is so much more superior. But you have to have the right specs on your computer so make sure to check those out before buying the game. It was worth upgrading my computer-to me. I have this and most of the expansion packs but don't waste your money on the "stuff" expansion packs because besides the meshes for items-it's really a waste of money. I was not at all happy with the Family stuff expansion pack I got. All the things were ugly and there were only a couple of dozen things-for $20? Bleh! You can download FREE stuff for your Simmies by going to reputational websites like www.thesimsresource.com and www.ModtheSims2.com. Read the how-to page and first download the necessary free software from the website. They have how-to pages. Taking the time to understand what you need and what you have to do and reading what items you have to download meshes for goes a long way and in the end it makes for a great gaming experience. Especially if you like to create great houses, interior design and totally unique people.
Anyway, if your computer has the right specs-definetly buy this game. It is so much fun and addicting. :)
Rating: -
I bought the Sims 2 Deluxe version in July and after almost three months of consistent gameplay, I'm ready to review.
I had the original Sims and it was a blast. I loved being able to control what my little people did, how they interacted with each other and little things like whether or not they went to work that day or when they went to the bathroom. The Sims 2 gives you all of that plus more - now not only can you control your little Sims, you can marry them off to Townies or NPCS, move them in and play them as well. Your Sims are much more lifelike than before - little details like they now have five seperate fingers and if they get engaged they will wear a diamond engagement ring. When they marry, it turns into a gold wedding band. If a spouse dies, the living Sim still wears his/her wedding band as an actual widow would. Sims can now get pregnant and have babies, which is a wonderful, fun addition to the game. The babies grow up very quickly - they are newborns for a couple of Sim days, then toddlers for three Sim days, then they become children. Toddlers are a bit of work if you enjoy playing large families - unlike newborns, which can lay in their crib for hours on end, toddlers have to be potty trained, taught to walk and talk, played with, cuddled, fed, bathed and put to bed. They also have aspirations that you will have to fulfill if you want your toddler to grow up well into a happy child (more on aspirations later in the review). Not a problem if you have a small Sim family but it can get a little difficult if you have more than 3 or 4 Sims living in one house.
Other new additions: teenage Sims get acne and if you have a mirror, you get the option to apply acne cream. They can also go steady with another teenage Sim but be warned that if your Sim falls in love with a Maxis teen Sim, once your Sim becomes an adult the romantic relationship is gone immediately. They will simply become best friends. Sims now have more bodily functions - they burp and pass gas (hehe). They have distinguishable facial expressions (sad, happy, angry) and can gain weight if you have them eating pizza all the time. Probably the coolest new feature is that the Sims can now die - they can either be killed in an untimely and tragic way or they can die of old age. Once your Sim dies, you can place their tombstone in the backyard to start a family graveyard if you wish (to turn the urn into a tombstone just move it outside and it will automatically turn into the tombstone) but if you do that you'll probably get ghosts. Yes, that's right, dead Sims come back as ghosts.
You now have aspirations and lifetime goals or wants - to keep your Sim happy and content, fulfill his/hers daily wants and avoid the fears. The Sims have a little meter on the control panel that shows what their aspiration level is - so if you are fulfilling alot of their daily wants, you get so many aspiration points and the meter goes up or down to reflect that. If it's in the green your Sim is reasonably happy. If it's gold your Sim is content. If it's platinum, your Sim is absolutely estatic and will do pretty much anything you tell him to (sometimes the Sims will run instead of walk when they are very happy). The little plumbbob that hangs over the controlled Sims head will also turn platinum once you reach that status. If your Sims have a high aspiration level when they transition into the next age - child, teen, adult or elder - they will be happier and find success much more easily. If your Sim has a high aspiration level when he/she transitions to an elder, they live longer.
You must have alot of RAM and a good video card to run this game. MUST. In my opinion this is the game's only downside. My computer is practically brand new (got it in June) and runs the game almost flawlessly. If you have an older PC you may find that your times to load a community lot or a family lot is longer, your gameplay may be choppy or the game may crash alot. So as others have said, it is better to have a PC that surpasses the minimum requirements listed on the game. Luckily you can buy more RAM and a new video card - they aren't too expensive.
If you are considering buying the Sims 2, I highly recommend the Deluxe version. It's only about $10 more than the base game by itself and you get the Nightlife expansion, which adds soooo much to the game (like cars!). I really enjoyed the original Sims but the Sims 2 kicks butt!
Rating:  -
While Sims 2 is very popular among teens and "tweens," it does not operate well on PC's built before Vista. (Note, Sims 2 does NOT require Vista to run.) However, because Sims 2 pans 360-degrees (and therefore requires a lot of pixels) it does require at least 1 megabyte or more of RAM. Otherwise, it is subject to frequent "freeze-ups" and "crashes." The registration process for Sims 2 is cumbersome, but I don't think you can get the cheat codes without it. My daughter loves Sims 2, but it is very time-consuming for kids to construct the play environment from scratch. As it involves topics such as sex and death, it might not be appropriate for younger or less mature children.
Rating: -
I have played The Sims, the original, since it came out and own all of the expansion packs that go with it. The original was great. But, when The Sims 2 was announced, I was beyond excited. The game more than met my expectations. If you were a fan of The Sims you have to have The Sims 2!
Rating:  -
My friend/co-worker brought this to work on a rainy and slow workday to pass the time. We made it so that our characters look like ourselves, which they do. It's amazing to see a virtual me. Also, we noticed that our Sims take on our real-life personalities which is both freaky and cool. I guess that's because we have to enter our horoscopes. I mean, my sims hand movements when she's bored are EXACTLY like mine. That is so amazingly cool! It took us a while to figure out how to play it (there are lots of symbols and stuff in the left-hand corner), but about a half hour later we all pretty much got acquainted with it. It's a lot like life, you have a house, friends, career, desires, and the like. Also like life, you have to make sure your sims bodily needs are met, i.e. hygiene, nourishment, and sleep. Unlike the real me, my sim constantly has to use the bathroom.
I have Sims Pets on PSP, which is nowhere as cool or as amazing as Sims 2. Sims Pets on PSP takes more time to load than to actually play. In Sims 2, you can make a virtual form of yourself and make you do something you don't ordinarily do. You can choose outfits to wear, ranging from casual, sporty, dressy, underwear, and pajamas. Currently, I'm a pickpocket, who oddly enough has to carpool to "work."
I only wish that you could minimize the window. You have to save and then quit Sims 2 if you need to do anything at the same time. In this respect, it's not easy to use if you're playing this at work.
I went on youtube and found out characters can age, marry, mate, and die. Also women can get pregnant and suffer morning sickness, and I also saw on youtube that men on rare occasions, especially after alien abductions, can too.
It's so cool, I just ordered the Sims 2 Deluxe on Amazon so I could enjoy the game at home. It's that good.
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